Today I was in an all strings concert. Brass players would have had to be wheeled away for rehabilitation. In fact, any really good musician (I don't class myself with these, but the effect is the same) could probably be forgiven for spending most of the time eating copious amounts of pizza and hiding back stage. Furthermore, it took place in a beautiful old dilapidated church, the kind of place I image vampires will be very grateful for in some strange ‘Being Human’-esque situation. The atmosphere was utterly bashed in by the horrific tones of my violin teacher, whose picture which happened to be nearby, which I wacked in the face in a kind of desperate two dimensional idea of voodooism. Then, despite my having a solo, not a soul who had chosen to attend the concert because of me was in attendance. And, during the solo, in which I was tearing apart poor old Handel, I looked up to find the mayor glaring at me.
On the way home I practised walking like Mr Pitiful mixed up with a druid. This involves stamping, twirling, humming, jumping, and falling over. It’s quite hard whilst carrying a strangely heavy blue violin case. Especially when the wires of various headphones which one is not actually wearing keep tangling one up. And then I was humming the song of today (see below) and did a rather flamboyant twirl only to find myself surrounded by the disgusting little boys who parade around my school, in which I live. To be fair, I felt a bit sorry for them, because they gave me terrified looks and were like, sorry, we, uh, didn’t, um, want to interrupt, er, you. Apparently they’d been sent to return my phone. Which has, incidentally died. Again.
The story of my phone! This cannot be missed.
I never had a phone. I was about 14 before I got one. I was on a Suzuki course (think, band camp for small people, taught with Japanese methods. All on stringed instruments) with my approximately second ‘relationship’, who happened to actually be two timing to be with me at the time. Two of our friends, who I’d known for years and years, both kind of seemed to like me too. They decided that the time had come to END THE STARVATION OF PHONE GOODNESS IN THE LIFE OF ME.
But they only had a tenner each. So they brought me an Alcatel piece of junk which did, I was proud to find, had a colour screen, and £10 credit. You can tell that this meant a lot to me. Especially as at this point my guy was off gallivanting or whatever he did with his free time. I was also utterly shocked because it wasn’t my birthday or anything. Ah, I had so much to learn between then and persuading guys to spend extortionate amounts on drinks for me. And now, the next challenge: get strangers to buy me train tickets.
The point of the phone story is that my phone was brought by these lovely but skint guys as a temporary measure. It’s a useless, but light, and cute, piece of plastic. It would consider having a camera a sign of the deprivation of the new age. It would rather implode than receive a message which is more than one page all at once, because that would be a sign of weakness. It refuses to be dictated to about when it shall turn on, or when it shall accept messages, even when the inbox is utterly empty. Don’t even think about trying to persuade my phone that when a charger is plugged into it, that means it should charge. Oh no. When a charger is plugged in, you need to get the angle of said, perfectly round, charger just right, and even then it might decide that it is just not worth the effort. Why accept energy when one could just stop working for a good week or two?
Did I rant?
I think I did. I am ashamed.
The other soul-destroying occurrence of today was the advent of school photos. This involves everyone else getting out the makeup trowel and me standing awkwardly at the side wearing inappropriate clothing. Furthermore, we had the ‘leaver’s photo’ for all of us in the final year of school, in which all the really cool kids stood at the front and the guys took off their shirts or sat on top of golf buggies and the girls made human pyramids.
My friends and I all wore hats. I did go a bit crazy and add in a purple cloak. I’m sure that we will be hidden behind all the exciting things at the front, and we’ll probably all look a bit peeved. The thing is, it doesn’t matter, and at the same time, it’s hugely important. I mean, it’s an individual experience which can never be repeated, I guess. But there are so many photos of me with the people from there who I actually care about, that these are more just a general reminded that I managed, at some point, to escape from the groups which would have wanted to stand at the front. Do I sound bitter? Or does the fact that I’m exhausted and vaguely frustrated over my music come through?
Song of today: Laura Marling’s Old Stone. Kind of sad, but then ‘scream my name, a childish game’. It’s like some sort of iced tea, kind of not entirely one thing or another. And then it all builds up and I find I’ve stopped everything I’m doing to listen to it. I also am slightly obsessed with her song Night Terror. I adore the way that the lyrics are so strong and at the same time so fragile. The rhymes and repetition enhance the words – the dreamlike qualities. And then ‘a candle at my chest and my hand on his knee’ – such proximity, and the candle, kind of scary but also lonely and yellow and half comforting. And the screaming. My creative writing’s always really manic, full of screaming and trembling and so on, so this kind of strikes a weak spot I guess.
Like this:
‘Once he swallowed a silver burning star
which mixedsweet unbeing with old life,
smelling of moon shine blooming petalled cores.
Little to love but less to hate
in the lonely lessons in lust, losing
himself on rails, jumping lamb-green leaves,
skipping past mindless boats, cloaking his unrecognition.
Now he’s hopelessly entwined in rotting arms,
noticing nothing for leagues over his palms.
Tremble. The drowned man tugs them through
the ribcage of his silent lullabyed heart.
Strands lift gently to cloak death’s vision,
but his empty hollows awaken to follow
hopscotched eyes rolling to echo the sky,
and the seaweed – speared blue – on sands.’
This definitely needs reworking.
And the glorious Matt sent me this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTUbQ5kmaC8&feature=related which is apparently made with a music box and therefore is full of win.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment